Doug Jones, right, with John Blitz, left, and Vernon Knight stop at Moundville State Park, which Jones and his father helped rescue from erosion and neglect.

TUSCALOOSA -- His sur­name, profession and passion for history match one of Hollywood's greatest action heroes, but Doug Jones was cut from a different mold than Indiana Jones.

The late University of Alabama professor preferred a much more sedate lifestyle, one that allowed him to quietly scrape away dirt and rocks to discover remnants of prehistoric times.

When actor Harrison Ford donned his trademark fedora and cracked that potent whip of his as he looked for the Ark of the Cove­nant or nasty Nazis, Doug Jones was probably at Moundville State Park, making sure everything was in order at a site he and his father helped preserve.

Unlike "Indy," who was an ar­chaeologist, Jones was a geologist as well as a paleontologist -- a sci­entist who spent much of his life examining fossil remains to de­termine the geological periods during which they might have lived and died.

Jones, who died at the age of 79 last week after a brief illness, had been retired for many years, but his loss has been felt throughout the state, especially at the Univer­sity of Alabama where, during his long academic career, he had been a classroom teacher, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and director of its Museum of Natural History.

Retired from the university since 1996, Jones kept busy as he pushed into his 70s by reorganiz­ing and cataloging the museum's invertebrate collection of more than 10,000 specimens.

We met for the first time more than two decades ago in Lowndes County, where fossilized remains of a prehistoric sea creature were discovered under a woman's front yard during an excavation project.

Some quickly dubbed it the "Braggs Monster." In that case, size certainly did matter because experts believe it had no equal when it came to sea serpents.

Scientists said it weighed more than 20 tons, had a skull that mea­sured six feet and was about 60 feet long as it slithered through central Alabama, which was part of what today is the Gulf of Mexico.

One of the first things I asked Dr. Jones that day was "what would such a huge creature eat?"

"It was so big it could pop cows into its mouth and eat them like popcorn," he said, with just a trace of a smile breaking across his face.

That kind of a descriptive com­ment is known in journalism cir­cles as a zinger, a hook, a "wow."

The interview made its way into the Montgomery Advertiser the next day -- along with an art­ist's rendering of just what the "Braggs Monster" would have looked like as it sought nutrition during the pre-historic world.

Professor Jones became so fa­mous that his photo and the draw­ing made its way into the Weekly World News, one of the least re­nowned supermarket tabloids that was always good for a laugh as shoppers stood in checkout lines around the country.

"Now, how in the world did this find wind up in that thing?" he asked, referring to a tabloid more accustomed to reporting stories about Hitler being found at a beau­ty salon in Argentina.

"Well, doc, they're known as free-lance articles, probably dat­ing back to the Jurassic period," I told him, trying to come up with something befitting his profes­sion.

We both got a good laugh out of it and kept in touch from time to time whenever I'd get up to Tusca­loosa, where he had reached near-legendary status on the campus.

His accomplishments were wide and varied, but the bedrock of his scholarly existence was in Moundville, where he and his fa­ther helped save and preserve an Alabama treasure.

The site overlooking the Black Warrior River near Tuscaloosa once was home to Indian tribes long before the first white settlers ventured into what became known as Alabama.

Huge rectangular mounds cov­ered the area, some as high as 75 feet. They are believed to have been used as burial sites and for other tribal needs.

The late Walter B. Jones, who was director of the Alabama Muse­um of Natural History, made sure son Doug and his two brothers knew at early ages just how impor­tant the site was.

Doug Jones learned later that his father had twice mortgaged the family's house to raise money to buy land surrounding the mounds. He was convinced they would dis­appear due to encroachment of na­ture, vandalism and farmers who tended to plow over and around them.

Preservation of the site was a highlight of Walter Jones' life and his son recalled later that his dad told him on more than one occa­sion "the least we could do is pre­serve this monument in their memory."

As it turned out, saving the Moundville site also became a monument to Walter and Doug Jones -- a father and a son who will be fondly remembered for many years to come.

Alvin Benn writes about peo­ple and places in central and south Alabama. If you have sug­gestions for a story, contact him at 875-3249 or e-mail him at benn8071@bellsouth.net.

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Scientist's work will long be recalled

TUSCALOOSA -- His sur­name, profession and passion for history match one of Hollywood's greatest action heroes, but Doug Jones was cut from a different mold than Indiana Jones.The late University of

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